


King Rob, Good and Brave

by broomclosetkink



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, One Shot, Robert and Ned are eternal bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broomclosetkink/pseuds/broomclosetkink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dragonspawn doesn't have the same meaning when the king looks into hazy gray eyes and a frown so dark it makes the babe look like a tiny, sullen Ned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	King Rob, Good and Brave

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I have serious feels concerning Robert Beratheon, and I think he would have been a MUCH different man if Lyanna had lived. Also, this has so much fluff teeth may rot. Sorry about that. No beta, I wrote this in like ten or fifteen minutes...so, you know, take caution.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Dragonspawn doesn't have the same meaning when the king looks into hazy gray eyes and a frown so dark it makes the babe look like a tiny, sullen Ned. The babe is all fuzzy brown curls and wriggling feet, swaddling cloth come lose, opening to show a soft belly with a the rotting stump of the mother's cord. He tries to picture silver hair and purple eyes, three dragons roaring silently from a black helm and that gods be damned prince's last words, “I'm not him, Baratheon...I'm not him...”

 

It makes him think about the children, the ones that made his soul squirm and shake deep behind his rage. The Lannister cloaks hide blood well, but there wasn't much left of the sucking babe than bits of skull, tiny limp fingers, and purple toes. The girl was worse; her eyes were wide open, looking at him.

 

They say she cried for her kitten. Balerion, she called it. Like a little puss would protect her from the Mountain That Rides. He tries not to remember the dead, rheumy eyes, but it's so hard, because he thinks of think his bastard Mya, fine dark hair streaming around her laughing face as he through her up high, so high. He always caught her, held her safe, laughed with her. He imagines her, dead and torn open, and it hurts worse than he wound he's ever received.

 

It's a downfall, isn't it? Like fucking and drinking and the way his head aches when he thinks of all the copper counting that goes into kingship. But he _loves_ children; high born, low born, true born, or bastards. A child is a child is a child.

 

And he's done wrong. So fucking wrong.

 

“Gods be damned, my lady,” he says, choking. The great Robert Baratheon slips to his knees, and he feels as though rubies are falling out of his crushed chest, as though blood is slipping between his teeth. “He has your eyes, and Ned's sour look.”

 

Bless the ground she walks on, Lyanna laughs – _laughs_! She's crying as well, and that's a sight that makes Robert feel as though his skin has grown too small. Warriors don't gentle crying women, they hit things. (Robert is very, _very_ good at hitting things, but he refuses to hit his lady, and Ned will punch back, and now is _not_ the time to beat each other. Later. With ale. A _lot_ of ale.) But he loves Lyanna because she likes to wear breaches and ride astride like a man, because she's better with a bow than even Brandon was, and by all the gods old and new, he thinks if he ever had a chance of keeping his dick to one woman and one alone, it'd be the sweet Lady Stark.

 

So he takes the boy out of her arms, cradles him against his massive chest. “His name?” he asks, and if he's on the wrong side of tears himself, well, if he ignores it, maybe everyone else will, too.

 

“Jon,” says Lyanna, smiling so sweetly, so sadly. _Not fair_ , thinks Robert, because he's fancied naming one of his boys Jon. A true born one, of course, to honor that stubborn, honorable, fearless man that turned he and Ned into men. _Real_ men. Tried at least, did better with Ned than Robert, but all men have cocks and brains, and sadly some never learn to think with both instead of just one.

 

“I could. I _should_ kill this...but he's a part of you. I can't – I won't – I won't ever hurt you, my lady. I swore that once, and I still mean it.” Tears. Gods be good, he's turning into a woman. His cock may even now be crawling inside his body. “I love you, my sweet lady. I love you despite the dragon and the bastard, and because you're as wild as your land. All that you hold dear is dear to me.”

 

“Jon's dear to me,” says Lyanna, “he's part of my heart.”

 

“Then he's part of mine,” Robert answers, because son of a whoring bitch, he's fucked. He's well and truly fucked. The war ends and he's holding the last dragon in his swaddling clothes, his lady love is disgraced and fallen, and Ned Stark is in the corner pretending he's not sobbing into his furs.

 

Alright, maybe not _sobbing_ , not exactly. But when Robert tells this story to Lyanna's boy (their boy? Maybe, maybe one day...), Ned will wail, and cast himself upon them. “Oh sweet old gods!” he'll cry, “I knew you were kind and honorable, my dear friend!” And then he'll put on a dress and skip away in a field of flowers, while Robert is very manly and strong.

 

“When my lady is more recovered, we leave for King's Landing.” The boy fusses, and Robert gives him a finger to gum. He finds a callous, and worries it, perhaps looking a bit accusing when no milk is forth coming. “We've a wedding to plan.”

 

“Wedding?” Those eyes, those eyes she shares with her brother and bastard, they're wide as the moon. Like always, Robert feels faintly dazed by them, as though he's been given a solid blow to the head. “Y-you can't – _our_ wedding? I won't leave Jon, I don't care if you _are_ the king, I won't leave my baby –”

 

“Put your teeth away, woman,” Robert grumbles, and attempts to pretend he doesn't like having the slight weight of a babe in the crook of his arm. “I give you all I have, and I take all of yours. Including the boy. As far as anyone knows, he's mine.”

 

“Yours?” echoes Ned, staggering a half step back. Robert hasn't seen him look so wide eyed and stunned since the first time Ned saw a cunt, and by the gods he can't help but laugh. Jon's eyes pop open, giving him a baleful stare as he's jostled.

 

“A weasel will crawl down your throat if you aren't careful, Ned. Gods be good, yes, mine.” A pause, while he tries to think. He wants to be good for Lyanna, wants to _deserve_ her. He fought a war for her, and by the gods, he won it. Robert doesn't pretend to be a great thinker or a spiritual man, but he knows that there are people who help to be better, and those that quite actively do the opposite.

 

Killing children...it's wrong. It's _evil_. Will he ever be forgiven for it? He doesn't think so, not really. (He never did, but that was war; this, on the other hand, is _love_ , and the two are not equal.)

 

“I'll try to do right. If you'll help me.” He doesn't promise no drinking or no whores or no more bastards on his part, because he's a man, and well, things happen. But he will love her, yes, love her like the songs, with passion and a true heart and for _eternity_.

 

“Robert...” she breathes, tears like diamonds on her dark eyelashes. Robert leans forward, kisses them away. He licks the salt from his lips, takes it inside, knows that Lyanna is his heart and pride and his reason for being. He's fucking more women than he can count, has four or five or maybe six bastards strewn from one end of the Seven Kingdoms to the other.

 

So what is one boy? One little boy with his mother's eyes?

 

“You'll make a good queen.” His voice is gruff, and his heart flutters like a maid when she kisses him. It isn't passion and it isn't lust, but it's soft and gentle, and Robert decides he likes how that tastes. They'll have more babies, strong Baratheon babies, and Lyanna will look so sweet swollen with them.

 

It won't be easy, no, of course not. They're both beautiful, half wild, and as stubborn as an angry mule. But they can fuck and cry and love and raise a family, fight like animals and share wordless looks of pride when they become grandparents, watching the little ones (so like their own from years ago) toddling across the throne room on chubby legs. (Naked, escaping a bath, screaming like a wild animal: well, little Eddard takes after his Granddad Rob, and not gray Uncle Ned.)

 

“Did you love him?” Robert will ask, and maybe he'll have to ask more than once. Maybe a hundred times, maybe a thousand, perchance even a million. But one day, when Lyanna's hair has gone gray and her teeth are loose, when the Direwolf Queen has gone white in the muzzle, she'll answer;

 

“Yes.”

 

It will hurt, just a little. But he'll huff and shrug and continue sharpening the battleaxe in hand. “Eh, well, I still won in the end. You love me now.”

 

Lynna will kiss him, sweetly, and it's like they're still young. “Oh, yes. I do, my sweet lord. I do.”

 

(One day, not so very far away, a little prince will wrap chubby arms around King Robert's booted leg, quietly inquiring, “Dada?” And gods be true, King Rob the Good and Brave will scoop that child up high, so high, tossing him until he laughs.

 

“Did you hear that?” he'll bellow, while his wife looks on fondly. “Dada! He called me Dada!”)


End file.
